black magic on the holy drive
by Syrasha
Summary: "Nora." The name feels foreign on his tongue, like gold and nectar in his mouth, and it's enough to get her to look at him, look away from the ruins of what they've just destroyed. He's been any number of things, a fly on the wall and a monster in the shadows, but she has always been real, and that's why Nora has never been able to learn his lesson. You can't trust everyone.


**tw for a brief suicide mention and explicit smut.**

* * *

Deacon doesn't know if anyone's ever trusted him the way that Fixer trusts him, and frankly, when she first crawled out of that vault, he can't believe that the Commonwealth didn't swallow her right then. Anyone this kind, this sensitive, they shouldn't be able to survive in a world like this. If anyone knows that, it's him.

Of course, she _didn't_ survive this long without a bit of a mean streak, but it wasn't misplaced, and Deacon had never seen Fixer be cruel to anyone who didn't deserve it.

It's been a long time since Deacon has felt guilt over a lie, but his "recall code" was turning things problematic. _You can't trust everyone_ , he had written, and Deacon doesn't regret it, not really, because it's true. Fixer isn't a child, though; of course she knows that. Deacon doesn't trust her, not really, not yet, but Fixer hasn't let him down up to this point, even if she is on the gullible side.

He finds her gullibility utterly _charming_.

"You know, I'm beginning to think Tom's trying to kill us by sending us out here to place MILAs." Deacons says it as he steps over a super mutant corpse, tapping its head with his boot gingerly for emphasis.

Fixer laughs, smile wide and genuine. "Come on, Deacon, we have to be prepared for any instance of Institute infiltration."

"Points for alliteration."

Fixer chuckles again, and he smiles back as a reflex, and oh _man_ _does he have it bad for her._

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Fixer asks the question suddenly, and were Deacon a less skilled chameleon it may have actually thrown him.

"Only when we're waltzing into a ruin full of super mutants and you're armed with five shotgun shells and a tire iron." He knows what this is about. He's been waiting for this conversation.

"You're not a synth, are you?" Fixer evades his evasion.

"What do you mean? Oh man, you read my recall code, didn't you?" Deacon's tongue is moving faster than his mind, still playing a part, making the motions without a thought.

"No!" Fixer is outraged by the thought, and Deacon almost winces with something that is very close to guilt. "No, I wouldn't. I just can tell that what's written on that paper isn't a recall code."

"Fixer, you're breaking my heart. What are you implying?"

"How stupid do you think I am? You bring the damn thing up every time we talk. For being so great at gathering intel, you're pretty good at letting clues slip yourself." She isn't mad at him, far from it. Fixer's still smiling, and she hands the paper he gave her a week ago back to him, folded still like it had been when he'd given it to her. "I get that you can't really trust people in the line of work we're in, but I trust you."

 _You can't trust everyone_ , it says on the paper, and she refuses to read it, refuses to do anything except force him to take it back, and it's like she's willfully refusing the lesson even though Deacon knows she has no idea what's written on there. Fixer's not a terrible liar, and she lies often enough, but she's never lied to Deacon because if there's anything Deacon knows, it's what a lie looks like.

 _You can't trust everyone, but you can certainly find your partner incredibly kissable for their inability to comprehend the basic tenets of survival you've always clung to_.

* * *

When she returns from the Institute, Fixer has none of the vigor that Deacon associates with her. Desdemona grills her the second she comes down the stairs into HQ, not unfairly; no one's ever been to the Institute. Fixer lasts about five minutes before she completely loses it. As far as Deacon knows, no one in the Railroad has ever seen Fixer like this, and Deacon knows Fixer better than anyone there. Glory takes her by the arm and pulls her away from Desdemona, towards the corner of the room that they use as makeshift bunks.

"It's awful, Glory," Fixer says in between sobs, and Deacon can hear her as he approaches them, because that's just how Fixer is. Her heart is always on her sleeve. "My son… my son is the leader of the Institute. They stole my son, and now I've found him, and he's sixty years old, and he's the one enslaving your people, Glory."

Fixer's sobs rack her whole body, and when Glory looks to Deacon it's because everyone in the Railroad knows that he's the one who knows Fixer best. Deacon can count on one hand the number of times he couldn't find anything to say in his life, and this is one of them. When Deacon doesn't say anything, Glory finally says, "I'll keep Dez off your back. Take all the time you need, Fixer."

Glory rises and walks back to Desdemona, who at least looks concerned about Fixer if nothing else, and that leaves Deacon standing there, leaning against the wall next to Fixer's curled up body. He slides down the wall, and Fixer isn't crying anymore.

"I was scared Glory would hate me. I had to tell her the truth," Fixer says it quietly, and Deacon chuckles.

"See, that's where you and I differ. Why not just lie and keep her off your back?"

"Because I'm a terrible liar."

"You're not _terrible_ ," Deacon reassures, using a lazy tone as a mask, "Nobody looks good at it standing next to me. I make it look like child's play."

"Desdemona wants me to play along, to act like I'm with them to gather intel." There's desperation in her voice, like there's a cry waiting to get out that can't quite squeeze free, and it's raw and human and it hurts Deacon just hearing it come from Fixer. "Eventually I'll betray them. I'm going to have to betray my son. I'm going to have to _kill_ my son." He doesn't lie to her, but he doesn't tell the truth either, opting for silence and taking a drag from his cigarette instead as Fixer stares blankly ahead at the wall before continuing.

Fixer doesn't say what's obvious to both her and Deacon. She doesn't _have_ to betray her son; she doesn't _have_ to kill Shaun. Fixer could always turn on the Railroad instead, kill Glory and Desdemona –

Kill Deacon

\- And she'd be perfectly justified in it. Deacon knows that Fixer owes the Railroad nothing except maybe a thank you. She's traveled all over the Commonwealth and a few centuries to find her son, and now Shaun is here at her fingertips, on the other end of everything Fixer has been fighting against.

It's with hatred he has never heard from Fixer except in reference to the Institute that she speaks again. "My _son_ is making me choose between _him_ and the _Railroad_."

"In your son's defense," Deacon's tone is still lazy even as the gravity of the situation dawns on him, "He probably doesn't know what a cool guy I am. If he did, he probably would understand you having some reservations."

It's a joke. Anyone who knows Deacon has heard him make the same kind of quip a million times, and they usually roll their eyes and move on, but Fixer laughs, a little hysterically, and rests her head on his shoulder. Deacon can feel her tremble and _I'm so sorry sorry sorry but I'll be damned if I let the Institute take you from us – from me_.

"I refuse to sell out the Railroad. I refuse to sell _you_ out, Deacon."

It's wrong and it's sick, but Deacon's chest unclenches even though he can't quite keep the paranoia at bay. She has chosen the Railroad (chosen _him_ ) over her son, and God help him he knows it's wrong but he hasn't felt so happy in years, even if he knows she could change her mind in an instant. Fixer doesn't speak again and Deacon has nothing to say, but eventually she stops trembling and when Deacon realizes Fixer's fallen asleep on his shoulder with her face rolled into his chest, he aches.

 _You can't trust everyone, but I don't have to trust you in order to be completely infatuated. Barbara would have loved you._

* * *

Fixer does what Desdemona asks without question, and that means there are no more Deacon 'n Fixer ops in the field, and Deacon has to admit to himself that he misses her. The few times he is graced with her presence, she looks tired.

"Hey, Fixer," he says offhandedly once in one of these short run-ins, "A nap wouldn't kill anybody, least of all you."

Her smile is weary, and he doesn't know for sure how old Fixer is, but Deacon has always been pretty sure that he's older (not counting the years in cryo, of course). She's beginning to age so quickly that she is starting to actually look _older_ than Deacon.

Every wrinkle on her face is another chance that Fixer has decided to turn on the Railroad – _turn on him he deserves it why wouldn't she return to her son when her son is all she's even been looking for from the very beginning_ – and Desdemona's pushing all of them harder than she ever has before. Of course she is; no one expects any different, least of all Deacon, and Fixer knows it's necessary because she's still doing it without a second thought.

Not having Fixer feels like he's operating at 50% capacity. Half the squad is missing so his productivity is halved too, except Fixer's doing the work for both of them. Every time she teleports off to the Institute it takes everything in Deacon's power not to grab on to Fixer's arm and see if maybe the tech will pull him with her.

So instead he runs errands for Tom, gathers the intel that Desdemona asks for, buys Glory a drink every now and then, and waits. Usually he forgets to eat. Sometimes he sleeps. He never sleeps well, though. Deacon has never slept well, so this isn't a new development. He hasn't slept well since Barbara, anyway; perhaps saying he never slept well is a bit dramatic.

It's late one night when Fixer teleports back to HQ, and Deacon's almost asleep, their drummer boy the only other one left awake. He plays asleep, wanting to listen to whatever Fixer might say about her sudden appearance, but she doesn't say a thing. Deacon's eyes stay squeezed shut, and then he feels the mattress next to his move. Fixer must be close, because when she whispers Deacon is fairly certain he can feel her breath. It's dark enough that he risks opening his eyes, and it must be safe, because Fixer doesn't acknowledge that he is awake.

Deacon can see her lips move. "They don't seem so evil when I'm up close, Deacon. I helped them start a nuclear reactor today, one so big that they'll never want for power again, and they were all so happy. You should have seen Shaun's face. He was so proud of me." Fixer's voice catches, and she chokes out, "I still love him. He's over twice my age, but he's still my baby boy, Deacon. How can I kill my only son?" She pauses. "I haven't told Desdemona. You're the only one who knows, if you're listening, but Shaun named me Director of the Institute."

Deacon's body tenses, but Fixer can't tell in the dark; she still hasn't learned his goddamn lesson, _you can't trust everyone_ , why is she telling him all of this - "I might think about it, if I could protect you, but even if I could, you'd hate me forever. You'd never forgive me. I couldn't live knowing you'd hate me, even if I finally had my son again." Things would be so much easier if she would just play the game he's been playing for years and years, the game that's kept him alive and kept him safe.

Deacon can't make himself hate her when she's trusting him with everything that matters to her.

He's been watching her lips as his eyes focus in the dark, and he can see her whole face now, and Deacon isn't sure if Fixer knows he's awake or not but he can see her staring at his lips.

"Would you mind if I kissed you?"

Well, she must know he's awake.

"I mean, I _suppose_ there are worse things that could happen." His words aren't as smooth as they usually are, but Deacon can shift the blame to how dry his mouth suddenly feels.

Their eyes meet and she inches slowly towards his mouth, her eyes shutting and her lips feathering across his. Fixer is almost shy, and it's hard for Deacon not to want to close the gap himself, but when she kisses him again, Deacon is glad he waited. It's chaste, and then it's not, and for the first time, Deacon wishes that they were at Sanctuary where they'd have at least some semblance of privacy. His tongue parts her lips, and she wriggles onto the sorry excuse for a mattress he's claimed as his own. Their bodies are flush with one another, and though they're both fully clothed, the flimsy excuse for armor she wears doesn't leave much to the imagination.

Fixer moans into his mouth, and it's so soft that it almost sounds like a secret, and Deacon has always been fond of secrets.

When Fixer pulls away, he's hard and she's panting more than a little, his hand holding her head to his chest. "I care about you a lot, Deacon," she says, and there are layers upon layers in that simple sentence: kindness, worry, fear, lust.

"Don't be embarrassed, doll." He can't be genuine with her. It's not safe to be real, but he doesn't want her to be hurt nonetheless, so he presses a kiss to her hair. "I get that a lot."

Her hair smells like soap, and briefly Deacon is entranced by it, before he remembers that the only reason she smells so beautiful is because of the Institute. Fixer falls asleep like that, and Deacon holds her until the morning, because there's no way he can sleep at the most normal of times and much less now.

The Drummer Boy is too enamored by Deacon's image and Fixer's infiltration to say anything about the compromising position he and Fixer are in, and Desdemona cuts them a break and acts like she doesn't notice them when she wakes up and Deacon is wide awake with Fixer still curled into his body.

 _You can't trust everyone, but goddamn you make me want to pretend like I trust you._

* * *

He doesn't see Fixer for a week afterwards, but when she finally does appear she runs right past him (which is, frankly, a little rude in his opinion, considering that the last time they saw each other they were swapping spit). Fixer's whole body is animated as she almost barrels into Desdemona, and she barely gets the words, "Brotherhood of Steel" out before some loser in power armor struts into the room. Fixer plants a bullet in the suit's fusion core and then falls into place at Deacon's side.

As she stoops down to reload, Fixer looks up at him. "Missed you, Deacon."

His heart swells, but his mouth has a mind of its own. "You were gone?"

Fixer rolls her eyes, and he would almost regret making a joke if she didn't look so cute while she was irritated with him. "You're the worst partner."

"Thanks." It's hard not to look at her without remembering how she felt pulled into his body, and Deacon feels himself being compromised (and getting a little hard). He almost groans out loud, thinking about how terrible it is that all he'd really like to do is pull her down to the floor with him and see how she looks without those scavenged raider leathers and underneath that vault suit. Deacon has heard her talk about how her husband pre-war had never been fond of her body after the baby, but Deacon likes the idea of convincing Nora that her body is just fine if she hasn't already discovered it herself (maybe with his tongue?).

They do make quite a team, if Deacon says so himself, and as soon as he thinks it, it's like things are happening in fast forward. Fixer singlehandedly repels the forces in the catacombs (Dogmeat by her side) and what's left of the Railroad evacuates, and if Deacon had been worried that she would side with the Institute, the genuine woe in Fixer's voice when she tells him Glory is dead almost banishes the thought. Almost.

Glory. There would never be another Glory. Deacon had always been the shadow, and Glory the light, and that had been before Fixer had ever even come into the picture. In retrospect, Glory had played a pretty big role in Deacon getting so attached to Fixer, Glory extolling the Vault dweller's skill to anyone who would listen. Glory had never been one for subtlety, of course, but she'd never been a liar anyway, so if Glory only had good things to say, then that only cemented what Deacon had thought anyway. Fixer is an asset, he has always felt that way, but Glory did nothing but reassure how he felt.

He almost feels a little guilty for being almost overwhelmed with lust only moments previously while Glory was literally giving her life for the cause, but one look at Fixer, who is standing there talking with Desdemona with fire in her eyes, and the ache in his heart for Glory hurts a little less. Light shines down into the ruins of the church, and it looks almost like a halo around Fixer's head, a crown of sunshine.

It's a little too easy to forget that Fixer has the power to destroy them all when she stands there looking like a heavenly creature bathed in gold.

 _You can't trust everyone, but you look like an angel sent to deliver us, and I'm not one to turn down a gift that shows up on my doorstep._

* * *

Nobody else sees the way that Fixer hesitates in destroying the Institute, but Deacon has always seen more than most. He sees her eyes flick upward, and he doesn't know if it's in silent prayer or in a last farewell to her son, but Fixer's heart is breaking in front of him. Deacon sees it.

Fixer still hasn't learned his lesson, even as she's burning everything her son has worked for to the ground, and Deacon wonders if she will trust him enough to let him piece her back together. He isn't even sure if he _can_ piece her back together. Deacon doesn't know if anyone can, with the way he's watching her shatter.

As they stand there, watching the explosions in the distance long after the Railroad has evacuated the remains of the Institute, Fixer's face turns wistful before it cracks, and when Fixer grabs his hand, it's like she's searching for shore in a storm. Fixer doesn't speak, and neither does Deacon, even long after the explosions have stopped and Desdemona and the others have dispersed, taking synth-Shaun with them.

"I don't know about saving the boy." Fixer's hair is falling in her face, wind fluttering around them. "I think it was selfish – one last attempt at saving Shaun. You'd think I would learn."

"Yeah, well." Deacon drops her hand in order to light a cigarette. "Long as you're standing next to me, you'll look like a paragon of virtue and learning."

Fixer laughs quietly but chokes up in the middle before dissolving into tears. The makeup she's been so careful about scavenging since the day she crawled out of the vault smudges as she runs a hand through her hair and then wipes away her tears, and Deacon can't find a joke to make it better. "When I told you I'd have to kill my son, I didn't know if I'd be able to do it. But I did. I killed my son." She sounds numb, and her voice drops to a whisper. "I _killed_ my _son_." Fixer is silent for a moment before she speaks again, laughing a little hysterically. "Nate always called me 'his little idealist.' Wonder what he'd say now that I've killed my son for the greater good."

She doesn't shy away from it; Fixer is saying it like a mantra – "I killed my son I killed my son I killed my son" – and they are both quiet for a long time. When Deacon finally speaks, it's barely audible through the whistling wind.

"Fixer –"

She cuts him off, and she looks almost angry. "I'm Nora. I betrayed my son for you, for what you and I believe in. If I did all that, you can at least call me by my name."

 _I betrayed my son for you_.

"Nora." The name feels foreign on his tongue, like gold and nectar in his mouth, and it's enough to get her to look at him, look away from the ruins of what they've just destroyed. He's been any number of things, a fly on the wall and a monster in the shadows, but she has always been real, and that's why Nora has never been able to learn his lesson. _You can't trust everyone_.

It is with a heavy heart that Deacon realizes that if Shaun had known not to trust, their plan could never have been successful. She is deceiving on such a level that even Deacon is pretty impressed.

It is just Deacon and Nora, standing there as the sun sets, and when Nora starts to cry again, it ends with a scream that pierces the air, so shrill that Deacon winces almost as though he can feel her pain himself. Her sobs are full-bodied and wild, without restraint, like an animal that is running on instinct alone, and Deacon is thankful for his sunglasses, because they at least hide a little of how helpless he feels.

"What kind of monster kills her own son?" It's a whisper, mostly to herself, Deacon thinks. When he tries to put his hand on her shoulder, Nora flinches and pushes it away, almost violently, with a glare that borders on hateful. It's hard to make eye contact in sunglasses anyway, but there's so much vitriol in her face that Deacon finds himself looking away.

"I shouldn't be allowed to enjoy having you close. I have no right to find comfort when I just murdered my son."

Deacon sighs. "Fixer…"

"It's _Nora!_ " Nora practically hisses it.

"Nora." Deacon corrects himself, using a voice that vaguely reminds Nora of Nate when he once found an injured raccoon in a trash can. "I'm in your corner. Always have been."

"I don't deserve anybody in my corner when my son thought I was in his." Fixer's words are harsh. "Anyway, how do I know you're even telling me the truth? For all I know, this was some convoluted plot for you to play me, get me in so I could further your agenda."

"Nora, this is a pretty twisted time for you to stop trusting me considering that that was probably the largest number of true words I have ever strung together consecutively."

"Don't _fuck_ with me, Deacon!" Nora whips around snarling and Deacon's hand instinctively goes for his knife, a motion Nora doesn't miss. A burst of laughter bubbles out of her throat. " _Look_ at you! Even when I trusted you, you didn't trust me, and it's no different now. I killed my son for someone who is absolutely prepared to knife me the second I make a wrong move."

"Sorry, sweetheart. You're pretty good-looking, but even I'm not so shallow that I won't move for my weapon when you go for yours." Deacon nods towards her left hand, which has withdrawn Nora's pistol from its holster and is resting in her trembling fingers. "If it makes you feel any better, I would have already been on top of anyone else who was pulling guns on me."

Nora laughs, almost hysterically, but she doesn't drop her gun, so Deacon lets his hand rest on his knife as a safety precaution. "You say 'on top of me' like the idea of you being on top of me isn't the only thing that's been keeping me going lately."

"You and half the Commonwealth, babe."

Nora lowers the gun. Deacon isn't even sure Nora realizes she had raised it, but she puts it back in its holster, and he takes his hand off the knife, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that is wondering if he really could have made himself kill her.

 _You can't trust everyone, but I don't really think you're the monster here. I'm pretty sure this is my fault._

* * *

The Railroad's work is far from done. The synths they've liberated are disoriented at best and incapable of assimilating at worst, so there's always someone to help. Desdemona's given Fixer – _Nora,_ he reminds himself – leave to come and go as she pleases and take as much time off as she could possibly need, an offer that is absolutely unprecedented.

"Never seen you make an offer like that before. Maybe working at full capacity has its perks for some people after all," Deacon says dryly, and Desdemona doesn't miss the hint.

"Next time your work almost singlehandedly results in the mass liberation of an oppressed people, we'll talk, Deacon."

Deacon plays mock-offended, and Nora isn't even anywhere nearby to defend herself. "Fixer told you herself it was all my plan all along." He's always been a good liar, but calling her Fixer had never felt like a lie before.

Desdemona rolls her eyes. "You've taught Fixer to lie with the best of them, Deacon."

The Railroad thinks of them as a pair, _Deacon and Fixer_. Nora had always been mad that it wasn't Fixer first, and she has disappeared for so long that Deacon is starting to think that she has bugged out after all, that he'll be just Deacon again, and he doesn't remember when he started feeling whole, but the thought makes Deacon feel a little emptier inside. Things felt like they were okay when Deacon and Nora parted ways after their almost-confrontation, but her complete absence has been such an anomaly that Deacon is starting to second-guess that assessment.

He is starting to think he might never see Nora again when Desdemona sends him to, of all places, someplace right outside University Fucking Point. Deacon wouldn't call himself a sensitive person, but the idea of heading back "home" doesn't exactly dredge up welcome memories.

Of course, when he goes out this time, it's to act as a heavy. With Glory gone and Nora MIA, someone has to do the field work that they left behind. Things are different from the very beginning, and they get significantly weirder when he gets to whatever godforsaken building Desdemona wants him to check for anti-synth activity and Nora is waiting right outside of it like nothing ever happened.

"Hey, sweetheart." Deacon's words are smooth as his heart pounds in his chest, and he wonders if Nora can see his shirt move with its beating. She has _always_ been perceptive. "They've been making me do real work, now that you're gone."

"Well," Nora says softly, "We can't have that. Need a hand?"

"Maybe two and then some eyes watching my back, if you're game."

"Don't need eyes watching your back if you don't get caught."

"Yeah, well." Deacon sighs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to test the waters, see how stable she's feeling. "When the best heavy in the operation bails on you, someone's gotta try to take up the mantle."

It's a joke, but Nora takes it a little more seriously than Deacon had really intended; he must have sounded a little more passive aggressive than he meant to. Nora looks at the ground. "I'm sorry I haven't been around, Deacon. I needed time, needed to figure out if I'd made the right decision, needed to figure out if I needed a fuck or if I needed you-" Nora is babbling, and she'll be petrified over what she is saying in roughly thirty seconds if he's learned anything about how Nora's mind works.

This is his Fixer – his Nora, and she's here and she's real and he isn't sure what it means but he can't stop thinking about how he never wants her to just disappear again.

"You know," he says, in his signature apathetic tone, "Sometimes I just want to pop a Stealth Boy and bug out. Never dreamed you'd beat me to it, but if that's what it takes to make you admit that I'm irresistible, then I won't complain."

Nora's cheeks are burning and her mouth is wide open. She's gaping like a fish, and Deacon is glad for his sunglasses because at least then Nora can't see the way that his eyes are crinkling with laughter. When Nora sputters, Deacon actually chuckles before closing the gap between them, putting a hand on each side of her face and pulling her into him. Her lips are cold and Deacon wonders how long she's been waiting here, but when she kisses him back hungrily he quickly realizes it doesn't matter. All that matters is that she is back and that they can finally be Deacon 'n Fixer again, and he'll even give her what she wants and they can be called Fixer 'n Deacon instead if it makes her stay.

"As much as I'd like to continue this and see how high you'll let me take you," he mumbles into her mouth as Nora rolls her hips into his, and groans, "I came here to check out anti-synth sentiment."

In an act that breaks everything he's learned so far about her, Nora nibbles his lip in protest as he tries to pull away. "You're telling me you'd rather do work than do me?"

Deacon can't help the growl that bubbles up in his throat, and the wicked grin that Nora presses into his neck as she bites at his skin is enough to let him know that he's made the right decision. He isn't sure that this won't end up a hate-fuck, but if there's anything Deacon has learned being a terrible excuse for a human it's that he shouldn't question good things until afterwards. It's hard to argue with Nora anyway when she's already on her knees in front of him and the wall suddenly seems like it doesn't have quite the support that he'd like it to.

At least he can finally say that he's gotten something good out of University Point.

You can't trust everyone, but we don't have to trust each other for me to make you feel good.

* * *

It's hard for him to think about work when Nora's got his length in her mouth, and he's never really had a great work ethic anyway. She doesn't seem to care that they're out in the open where anybody could pass by at any time, and public indecency seems like one of the lesser crimes he's committed around these parts of the Commonwealth anyway.

"Fix-"

Nora goes motionless at Deacon's slip, and it's difficult not to let loose in her mouth when her big brown eyes look up at him with her lips still tight around his cock. She slides her mouth slowly off of him, disconnecting with a _pop_ that is downright sinful. Deacon moans, and Nora slides a hand around his shaft, mercilessly teasing him.

"Nora, I mean. Not so sure I'm the one who's better at mouthing off between the two of us anymore."

"You'll have your turn," Nora says, and buries him in her throat once more before sliding him out with a definitive smirk, rising to her feet again even as he fights off the urge to beg her to take him in her mouth again.

"I don't know, you're setting pretty high standards for me with that tongue."

"I think you're capable of rising to the challenge."

"Well, I've _risen_ , alright, but I don't think that's what you really mean."

Nora rolls her eyes, but there's lust there too, and Deacon is glad to hug her to his body, his erection all that's between them as she kisses him hungrily. She nips at his neck as he shimmies her pants down, suddenly thankful that she isn't wearing that vault suit for once, and as soon as they're down far enough, Deacon turns her around. "Shirt off," he growls a little uncharacteristically, the lust taking him over a little more than he had expected. She obliges, and Deacon snaps the bra she's still wearing on her naked back. "Bras are so twentieth-century, doll."

"Then you better get rid of it."

She doesn't have to tell him twice, and her breasts come free in such a lewd way that Nora moans in a tone that almost sounds like release. Deacon places one hand on her nude waist and holds her ass flush with his body and slides the other around her front, thankful that she's close to his height. He brushes his thumb over Nora's clitoris, and she shivers.

"Can smell you, sweetheart." Deacon follows his statement by rubbing a finger over her slit before just barely entering, and Nora's sharp intake of breath is enough to let him know he's doing it right. When she looks back at him, her cheeks are burning, but she's grinding against his hand as he inserts his finger just a little deeper, so her lust must outweigh her embarrassment. Deacon slides in a second finger for good measure, and he's pleased to find that the more he moves, the more soaked Nora gets. With two fingers inside of her and his palm resting on her clit, Deacon's other hand barely has to brush her breast to elicit a cry of pleasure.

"You sound close." He's teasing her, and she loves it. Deacon can tell by the way she rides his fingers whenever she stops moving.

"Let me come." It's half a question and half a statement, and in response he turns her back around before pinning her to the wall that had held him up when she was going down on him before. Deacon's mouth latches on to one of her nipples before putting a third finger inside of Nora, and she wriggles and writhes without even bothering to be quiet. He teases her up and then slows down again, edging her to the brink of insanity.

"D-Deacon, l-let me come." Nora is stuttering, and briefly, Deacon sees how this kind of power could be addictive.

"You want to come, sweetheart? What do I get out of it?"

"Because then I'll be extra wet for you when you f-fuck me." She stumbles saying, "fuck" and that alone is enough to send Deacon into overdrive. He drops south from her breasts, never stopping the motions with his fingers before using his tongue on her clit instead. Nora squirms for him, and screams as if he's stabbed her when he removes his fingers, but seems more than satisfied when his tongue replaces them. Deacon works her clit with his right hand and kneads a breast with his left, and when her body tenses a final time, he's more than happy to taste her all over his tongue.

Deacon pulls away from her, and she crumples into the wall briefly before recovering enough to fall into his arms again. Nora's body is heaving, and Deacon holds her to him, reveling in how alive she feels, how real. Deacon is still throbbing, and when Nora's breathing finally steadies, she is face to face with him, bare-breasted and with flushed cheeks.

"You are so beautiful." It's what Deacon is what is thinking but he isn't the one speaking the words, and his mouth starts moving to hide the flush creeping up his neck.

"Stop it, doll, you're going to make me blush." The best way to lie is to hide a kernel of truth in it, and he can hide the blush in his words. Nora reaches up to his face, caressing Deacon's cheek, brushing her thumb up along his jawbone until she reaches the place where his sunglasses rest behind one ear. She pauses there, like she is asking for permission, and Deacon's mouth goes dry. He sleeps with the damn things on; he can't remember the last time he took them off willingly for anything but facial reconstruction.

When he doesn't protest, she starts to inch them off, and they are silent in one another's arms. The term _religious experience_ comes to Deacon's mind, and when Nora finally has them off of his face, he feels more vulnerable than he has since the Deathclaws took Barbara from him.

 _I trust her_ , he realizes with an instinct to run that's trumped only by how her curves fit into his body like puzzle pieces.

"Lord, Deacon," Nora chokes up, and Deacon isn't sure why. "Never pegged you for such an old man."

Deacon chuckles despite himself. The wrinkles he's gotten over the years are almost all concentrated around his eyes, and under her gaze, he is more than a little fidgety about being exposed like this. "We can't all age as well as me, doll. You look every day over two hundred years old."

Nora laughs, a little hysterically, rubbing a thumb over his right temple. "You have wonderful eyes," she says, and slides his sunglasses onto her face. They're too big for her by far, reaching up over her eyebrows and sliding down her nose, but Nora is standing there in _his_ sunglasses, and he can't wait to be inside her.

Nora doesn't give him a chance to respond before hitching her left leg up to his waist. He holds it up as a reflex, and when she slides onto him, it's like seeing the sun for the first time. Deacon grabs her by the other leg and holds her close, buried inside her so deep that she yelps with pleasure, and when Deacon takes her mouth in a kiss, he wants Nora to know just how wonderful she had tasted just moments before.

Her breasts bounce against his chest as he moves her up and down on his cock; Nora still hasn't lost the softness that she claims was common in pre-war women, and between that and the uncomfortably primal pleasure that he's getting from seeing her wearing nothing but his sunglasses, Deacon knows it won't be long. Nora isn't even trying to be quiet, wailing and moaning as he pistons into her again and again, and it is with a sick sense of satisfaction that he wonders what the Deathclaws would think if they saw how he had recovered from what they'd done to him.

She is warm and slick and still wet from her orgasm not too long ago, and if Nora's groans of pleasure are any indication, she won't last much longer this time either. Nora's noise lowers to a whimper that escalates once more as she tightens around his cock, and with one last thrust, Nora screams with such pleasure that Deacon wouldn't be surprised if every living creature within two miles heard her. Her shuddering sends him reeling, just enough to send him over the edge as well, and it's all that Deacon can do to ask, "Can I?"

When she nods, face still screwed up in pleasure, it's the last straw, and he releases inside of her, slowly pumping in and out to ride the last high of each of their respective orgasms. Nora makes no move to be released from his arms, and Deacon feels like his body is made of jelly, but he endures it a few moments more to just hold her there, eye to eye.

"These are mine now," Nora says, not a little breathless, motioning towards his sunglasses that are still perched on her face.

"They look better on you anyway, doll. Besides, I've got a spare pair."

Nora presses her forehead to his, and when he slides out of her, she gasps with loss. She steps away to get dressed, and Deacon does the same, but when he's done putting on the clothes he'd hastily discarded, she is still standing there in pants and sunglasses alone, likely distracted by something in the distance.

"Not that I'm complaining about the view, but do you see something that I don't see?"

"I can't go back to the Railroad, Deacon." Her voice is barely above a whisper.

"Why not? We can go back right now. I just don't see your objection. Let's check out the building, knock some heads, then we can go back."

"I can't go back. Every time I look at anybody I remember killing Shaun. It's why I haven't been by to pick up the synth that looks like him. I feel nothing but guilt whenever I even think about the Railroad, about the boy, about _you_."

"Did you take my sunglasses just to break up with me?" Deacon raises an eyebrow.

"Just- just listen to me, okay?" Nora sounds a little desperate, and she slides into her shirt without opting for the bra. "There isn't even anything suspicious going on here. I sent a runner to Desdemona just to get you out here to meet with me because I had to see you one more time because I couldn't go back myself."

"No offense or anything, but I'm really not understanding your point." Deacon's heart is sinking with every word he speaks.

"This is goodbye. You won't see me around anymore."

Deacon's mouth opens and shuts, looking for anything, an argument to convince her to stay, something to convey how unfair he feels it all is, how it feels like she's punishing _herself_ when really she should be punishing _him_ for making her choose between Shaun and himself, but all that comes out is, "You can keep the glasses."

Deacon has seen Nora cry a few times, but this is the first time he's ever walked away while she's doing it.

 _You can't trust everyone, but it's hard to blame you anyway._

* * *

Deacon tells Desdemona that Nora is dead. Desdemona takes it about as well as Deacon expects her to.

"God damn it. How did it happen?"

It's not even a lie, really, because Nora might as well be dead to them. She can't come back, or at least, she won't.

"She didn't, uh, take so well to betraying her only blood relative. I stopped by Goodneighbor to check in on a couple of rehomed synths, and Fahrenheit told me Hancock had sent word that she'd tossed herself off the bridge outside of Sanctuary."

Desdemona visibly winces, and Deacon briefly reconsiders the deception before thinking better of it. If Desdemona knew Nora – Fixer, he scolds himself, because if he thinks of her as Nora he can't help remembering how good it felt to be buried inside her – was still alive, she would stop at nothing to get her back. The Railroad hasn't had a new agent so gifted in a long time; hell, she even gave Deacon himself a run for his money.

He misses her, if he's honest with himself, but he tries not to be. Still, Deacon doesn't have to fake feeling pained about Fixer's absence, and Desdemona's eyes soften.

"I'm sorry, Deacon. I know you and Fixer were… close."

Desdemona is dancing around the elephant in the room, the fact that Fixer and Deacon were always professional at HQ, but they were also a little too close by regular Railroad standards. Desdemona let them have their hand brushing and late night canoodling so long as it kept Fixer on their side, because Fixer was the greatest weapon the Railroad had acquired. They made exceptions for people like Fixer, and Fixer's privilege became Deacon's once Deacon had become her vice.

"Yeah," he concedes, "Yeah, we were." There's no lie, no bravado, no lackadaisical Californian tone, and Deacon won't let anyone cross Fixer's name off the board until he finally works up the nerve to do it himself. Glory and Fixer, both out of his life just as quickly as they'd entered it. Who was he supposed to talk to now, that asshole Carrington? Hell, they'd even sent the little Shaun-droid away to some settlement because resources were so tight.

So Desdemona had him working overtime on recruitment. With the L&L gang the next biggest threat after the Institute (next biggest by a _long shot_ ), they needed more people out there for field work. Glory and Fixer had been in a league of their own, of course, and Fixer in particular had complimented Deacon's style, but they needed replacements, as much as it pained Deacon to think he'd be replacing _his_ Fixer.

There were a couple that were promising; a reformed raider who had fallen in with one of the newly escaped synths with a penchant for running her mouth, and a ghoul who didn't have the greatest social skills but certainly knew his way around the explosive. They call the raider Whisper (ironically, of course) and the ghoul the Professor because he sort of reminds Deacon of a mad scientist.

They have potential, but they're no Fixer and Glory. Those two raised the bar so high that Deacon can barely see it anymore. The other downside to Fixer and Glory being gone is that Deacon is _fucking_ exhausted. His intel takes turns for the worse, and he tells Desdemona things that sometimes don't check out not because he is _trying_ to mislead her but because for the first time his fly on the wall routine isn't working the way it ought to. It requires _constant_ focus and he is so tired that when someone manages to sneak through the catacombs, this time Deacon doesn't even notice. At least when Fixer came through he had known she was coming.

Desdemona has him in what he has been calling naptime, a mandatory four hour period each day he is at HQ where he is required to lay on a mattress and at least act like he's asleep. They sleep in shifts, and everyone is required to do this except Tinker Tom who Deacon is fairly certain is an alien himself. At any given time, three of the four of the Drummer Boy, Carrington, Desdemona, and Deacon himself are awake. It is during his naptime that the catacombs infiltrator arrives.

For once, he actually manages to be asleep during this allotted time, and for the first time in many days that Deacon is having decent sleep, the Drummer Boy is shaking him awake.

"Deacon! Deacon, Desdemona needs you! Someone just came in through the catacombs." The boy (man?) is whispering, and Deacon isn't sure why, because he was the only one asleep anyway. He crawls up from the mattress with the sickening sense of some kind of rebirth creeping over him, and saunters over towards where the stairs start, taking a deep breath before ascending into the antechamber.

"Deacon, what can you tell me?" Desdemona's voice is familiar and when Deacon finally looks out, he's a little uncomfortable because he has absolutely no idea who the person standing there is.

The woman has one hip jutting out with her hand resting on it, pistol lazily resting in the other hand with something that looks suspiciously like ghoul residue on the butt of the gun. She looks confident, with a swagger that translates without her even moving at all, and there's a cocky grin on her face, with full lips and high arching eyebrows that stretch above the sunglasses she is wearing.

The sunglasses.

"Well, she's got to be someone. She made it down here, right?"

Desdemona sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, while the grin on the stranger's face grows wider, and Deacon knows.

"So you've got nothing. She's a complete unknown."

"No offense, ma'am, but with the way things are, I don't think you're in any position to turn down someone who knows what they're doing with a gun."

"Dez, look at her face. How can't you trust somebody with a smile like that?"

Desdemona sighs audibly. "Is that you vouching for her?"

"Sure, you could call it that."

"Then I guess all that's left is what we call you." Desdemona is tired. She never would have accepted that much bullshit even from Deacon on a good day, but things have changed since the fall of the Institute.

"I mean." The stranger pauses. "How about Wanderer?"

"Wanderer?" Desdemona asks mostly to clarify, and the smile doesn't drop from the stranger's face.

"Sure. I mean, I wandered all the way down here, didn't I?"

Desdemona gives a weary smile. "Welcome to the Railroad, Wanderer. I'd be lying if I said we didn't need people who acted like they gave a damn."

Deacon is having trouble keeping his heart from beating out of his chest, and when Desdemona turns away, Wanderer slides up the sunglasses – _his_ sunglasses – and Fixer's eyes shine at him in the dusky light of the lanterns that light the antechamber.

"Thanks for joining us, Wanderer," Deacon says, lazy tone still intact despite the pounding in his ears. The others have dispersed back into HQ, and it's just the two of them there now.

"I heard there was a liar here who could teach me the ropes. If you know where to find him, tell him he can call me Nora."

"I heard he's great in bed." Deacon's fishing now, making sure this isn't all too good to be true.

Wanderer chuckles. "I heard that, too. Think he knows a good facial reconstructionist? I tried to get the last one to give me a sick scar on my bottom lip, but he was a hack."

"Yeah, well, there are artists and there are con men. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish." Deacon tries to wet his lips, but his mouth is dry. "Can't tell me a pretty girl like you doesn't have family back home to worry about them."

"I put the pretty girl to rest and came out on the other side someone else. The pretty girl had a lot of baggage; had a lot of guilt. So the pretty girl has gone away and all that's left is a penchant for sunglasses and a desire to help."

"Does she also have a thing for dashing rogues with shady pasts?"

The smile drops from Wanderer's face, and Deacon's heart starts to sink unwillingly.

"She loves them." Wanderer says it a little shyly, like it's a secret, and Deacon's lips part as if he's going to speak, but Wanderer continues first. "She understands if they don't love her back, that it's been a long year, that they slept together and then she dropped off the map and she has no right to come back, but she couldn't stay away, because when she stripped away all the guilt and stopped hating herself, all that was left was you, Deacon."

The babbling is reassurance that Fixer – _Nora, Nora, Nora –_ is still in there underneath the cool façade.

"That seems an oddly specific dashing rogue with a shady past, Wanderer."

The blush that follows covers her face, and she stutters a bit, searching for something clever to say. "W-well, I've always been a monogamous kind of girl."

"For a pretty lady like you, I suppose I could give monogamy a try."

 _You can't trust everyone, but I trust you._

* * *

 ** _thanks for sticking with this! this was posted as a mini-series on ao3, but i think it works as a one-shot as well. hope you enjoyed!_**

 ** _xx syrasha_**


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